


Sad Dad and The Dingus Daughter

by Modifier_x



Series: Dreams from a modern world [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Crack, F/F, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Gen, I was really bored, Modern Girl in Thedas, One Shot Collection, Other, Swearing, alternate plot points, not canon to main story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2018-12-07 13:50:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11624856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Modifier_x/pseuds/Modifier_x
Summary: This is just short snippets that I have written; I will be updating this between chapters and even with sections.These are in no way canon to the story I am writing.





	1. Sea's and Shores

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rewrite of one of my longest dream sequences of the original MGIT I wrote.

In this dream I am sitting in a field of green wheat, the stalks bend lazily in the wind, and I marvel at the grains. Each one is distinct and though different from the others, still perfectly formed. I run my hand along the edge to feel the combination of rough and smooth and then hold my face upward to feel the warm light of the midsummer day. The air smells just right, and the birds fly in an almost cloudless sky. I start walking; the field goes on forever.

The sky is blue, the birds sing, and there is a bee nearby. There is a stream that runs clear, and there are fish within. Walking next to me is a small boy, and he tells me how he sees the world.

His answers to my questions are so precious.

I ask him if we should care for the world. He says "Yes" like he's surprised I should even have to ask. I ask him if we should be kind to animals, his response is the same. I ask him if we should kill or harm animals and his eyes fill with tears. I ask him if humans should kill one another and he runs, runs like he just saw a monster.

I call after him, but he won't return.

He's a child, or is he? I don’t believe I have dreamt of a stranger before, yes I have had my dreams about my family and past but other than that my dreams usually only contain myself and the landscape created.

Toward where the boy ran the scene appears to be changing.

There are lights, too many to count, dancing on an ocean. Each one is brilliant, each one unique. I want to look at each one, no matter how many there are no two colours are the same.

The light that comes from within is purer than gold, more light than air - each one a small piece of heaven. I try to reach out to them, but the lights recoil in fright. Wisps. Beautiful, colourful wisps, what could the smallest spirit be dancing in my dream for?

They chant.

I can't understand what it is they are singing. But they're swimming, bobbing like it's a beautiful day at the beach. I want to tell them it's silly but they'll never listen, each one just as beautiful as the last but disconnected each other. Without warning beyond the scattering of the colourful creatures, I am plunged into the ocean.

I can't breathe.

The fish swarm around me a myriad of colour, shapes and sizes. Then I met with a blue whale who told me of their sorrow in his sing-song trills, breaking back through the surface of the water has me suddenly washing ashore.

I have washed ashore but not in the typical sense. I'm still underwater but ahead is a city, breathtakingly beautiful with old Greek architecture, but it wasn't a ruin; it should be, of course, submerged in saline currents. The statues of gods and goddesses were perfect, and the stone lions looked as if they might spring off their perches any moment.

Amazing.

The view is as intoxicating. I can move in any direction or even stop and float a while; the city is tinted a beautiful blue, sea creatures both real and fantastical swim past. Air bubbles make their way past me and to the surface with every exhale; they are only thing down here in a hurry to leave.

I could stay here an eternity.

Off in the distance just beyond the city lay a castle lay like an old man on a hill, the light shone through the water onto his craggy, tumble down the face. Seaweed clung in the shade of the ancient walls like a scraggly beard. The once proud turrets had crumbled in places giving the impression of a dishevelled party hat. The only building I could see with visible ageing amongst all that lay before me.

I feel as though this city loves me. It sees me smile ear to ear when I look at the windows on its skyscrapers reflect the ever moving creatures that swim above me. It empathised with my frustrated groan when a whale decided to swim through the path I am taking. It hears my satisfied sigh when I see a cluster of what appears to be seahorses. It celebrates with me when I swim to the top of a spire and cries for me when it’s winding streets end. The city sees and hears and feels every moment of.

The city feels alive.

The city may be alive in its own right, but it is while strolling down these beautiful streets admiring the way the buildings flow into each other from rooftop to rooftop via bridges and swings that the city came into its own.

Shifting shapes and soft orbs of all sizes and colours littered the streets, pressed against crystal parts of the buildings or trailing quickly behind each other in a playful game of tag. It is easy to close my eyes and listen to all the little sounds that seemed to flow with the current that moved my hair and clothes like the wind would have if we were on land, but it is as I stand there listening to this sunken city life that I hear it.

‘ _I lurk under the veil of black. Mist lingers it conceals my dark desire while I wait. I will be sated for in my sight looms despair._

_In her dwelling, she cowers. Taking solace in slumber but not for long. The very chamber that shelters her will soon become her grave._

_I reach her dominion. My finger strokes her face. I used to look like that. Her beauty and youth are probably used in her favour, but now I will feed on them. For both, these things are palatable delights._

_Her wails feed my soul. I grow strong as she becomes weak. I gnaw at her heart and mind. I feast on her sinew and bones. She can see her ghastly end and so can I._

_At last, my hunger lessens but my desire grows. I crave for more._ ’

It sounds so far away yet also as though it was spoken directly to me; I knew that If I opened my eyes the owner of the voice would be nowhere near me. A trick of the mind, a voice and a haunting promise. I feel as if it is time to go, to leave this ethereal city and try to head back to the surface.

As I start to move further and further towards where the sun shines through the water the city seems to become duller and more decayed then again dreams usually fell apart when you began to wake or move away. The closer to the surface the smaller the fish became, going from whales, giant turtles and majestic whale sharks to more recognisable oceanic life such as ordinary turtles, schools of butterfish, wrasses, and Surgeonfish glided along beside me.

There was the feeling of warmth and the soft tinkling of an actual breeze when I came to surface again, yet as I cleared the surface, the water was no more than a glass floor letting me look back down into the ocean below.

I have changed scenery quite a few times this night; I wonder what on earth has brought this on. This has been one of the greatest moments yet, wisps, sunken cities, glorious images of the ocean's wildlife, and now the looking up a stunning night sky.

The sunken city may have been alive but here moving along and looking at a sky with only one moon again was more then I could have ever imagined, charcoal black uncontrollably covered in thousands and millions of bright specks. I love that you can see star, after star, after star, a never-ending void of light that projects no means of guidance in my eyes.

I envy people that can read the stars. The complicated configurations and patterns of light which have taken years to be seen by the average naked eye. Below, the glass floor turned to a hillside, its textureless feeling dissolving down into the dewy grass.

I felt rain against my skin, but I didn't care, that is my sky, and those are my constellations if it rains here in then so be it, this is one of the only places I can see this again. This lingering glimpse of home, I recognise the hills I am running over, these are the hills I used to play on while I was in primary school.

The moon hung full and hazy beneath an eclipse of blazing stars, allowing me to see the rooftops of the identically bleak buildings surrounding me. My body was a fountain for the incoming rain, the water making my eyelids heavy.

I closed my eyes, a rattled sigh passing through my parted lips as I did so, causing my breath to fog, obscuring my vision, as I took in the feeling of wet, cold skin.

Bliss is only for a moment. 


	2. These moments with her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gay.
> 
> That is all.

I loved the quiet days, the ones of still telephones and silent clocks. I loved the random sounds that came sailing in the breeze; the birdsong came so sweetly, almost real as if it were softly spun sugar. I would sit there upon the clouds that were my dreams until, as the ones above are so prone to do, they condensed to form the random ideas that quench my mind. It was on those quiet days that ideas came as natural things do - from the sunshine, rain and earth.

On those quiet days when everyone left soon after eating, it was a chance to enjoy pottering about. With the music on and nothing but the trees for company, I slowly put my small world in order. I can honestly say that those days were my salve, a chance for the spinning top of ideas, that carousel of duties to slow and occasionally stop. It was as if I had honestly been given the day, and I could bow to the way the world is, this insane notion that to relax one has to do nothing or be pampered... or do what I love. I loved to make everything look clean, to bake, to garden and write whatever ideas were drifting by that day. I thought of those days as if someone had granted me a button to stop the war for a day so that I could breathe and have the serenity of wakeful rest.

My quiet days were feathers without hurry, moving this way and that in the air, happy to change direction according to the wind. Just as the feather will in its own sweet time be at rest upon the earth, so the sun will rise and set high in the sky. In each gifted moment between them, there is such freedom, an infinitely branching path with no paths at all. And in that complete liberty, there is a need for the calm kind of patience, the one that is content to await the trail to glow, to show itself worthy of adventure, of curiosity, of enchantment.

Today was the kind of day that the flags fell to the poles and no matter how cold it became things felt somewhat stuffy inside and out. That was the start of August, the month where nothing moved unless it had to and here in the little home my wife and I rented we had no want or need to move.

Our bed was soft and warm. I could leave my arm draped over her, more comforting than any blanket she had ever lay under. She was perfect in her nightgown and the bed sheets, seeing her at peace beside me is worth the hardships we endured to get here.

I ran my hand over her back, the soft hairs tickling the tips of my fingers. I could feel the bones through her skin, the vertebrae of her spine looking as though they tried to pierce through the flesh. Her skin was rougher than I remembered. Before the war, her skin was smooth and soft, but now it was as coarse roughened by the days spent in rebellion. Her hair had grown so long now; a thick, brown mess that slips through my fingers as I card my hand through the ends of it.

Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can't control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense. That's what it was like for me. I didn't plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has happened only once, and that's why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory.

I'll never forget a single moment of it.

When she rolls over and peers up at me blinking the sleep from her eyes and muttering about ' _damned cold_ ' and ' _you useless woman_ ', I know just how much I would give for her. Everything, should she ask the world I would give it to her in a heartbeat, ask of my the difficult and I will do it right now, the impossible? It may take a little while, but I will do it for her. She looks up at me with her sleep addled expression and kisses me. As cheesy as it sounds, it's just like the movies. For that single moment, time stops. I don't care about the coldness seeping into my shoulders, in fact, I don't even notice. It's just her and I.

There's no war, no death, no suffering, just us.

Tilting my head, I look at her still laying back in our bed. She kisses my cheek, and I move to face her, wrapping the blanket around us both. The world around me blurs as I look into her eyes. My arms reach and tangle around her waist. I listen to her breath in sharply when my cold skin meets hers, her arms encircling my neck drawing me in, a soft smile on her face.

"Good morning, did you know your hands are cold?"

I laugh slightly and drop my head to rest on her collar, "I do now, but that will change quickly," one of her hands drift up my neck and musses with my hair, a finger slipping between the strands and attempting to flatten the few that stand out from the rest. "You know it is Saturday..." I let my voice trail off as I lean up and press another kiss to her cheek, "No work, no nothing. We can sleep the day away if you like," a small hum of agreement is all I get in response before the blanket that had pooled around my waist is yanked over my head.

A muffled ' _ **really?**_ ' from myself and laughter from my wife is what follows as I attempt to remove the damned blanket, when I am finally free and back on my side of the bed I pull her close and wrap us back up under the warm sheets and quilts of our bed. "Better? no cold fingers or lacking warmth?" another huff and a shuffle closer is all I get from my wife before she goes back to sleep, her head on my chest and hands drapped across my stomach leaves me feeling whole.

I loved the quiet days, the ones of still telephones and silent clocks. I loved the random sounds that came sailing in the breeze; the birdsong came so sweetly, almost real as if it were softly spun sugar but I mostly enjoyed the quiet days for the time I spend with my wife.

There is nothing quite like these moments with her.


	3. Raze it

I remember the first time I went to the outskirts of my city after the betrayal, it was a nightmare and a half.

The city over the way is still burning, the smoke-filled air gives us this Halloween blood sun - how fitting. On this, the holiday that was supposed to respect the dead, the holiday that has become the worship of carnage and horror, there won't be lanterns. There won't be a need for damaged and tatty clothing or fake dismembered limbs. There is no shortage of the real thing, of the blood that congeals and browns. The very air we breath is pungent with the odour of the recently deceased and no-one can figure out how we earned this ticket to hell.

It's been days since any new food arrived. If anyone has candy, they aren't giving it away tonight. So on this final day of October, we have run full circle to our ancestors who lived as close to death as we do in these dark days of the war. We live moment to moment on cold ashes that fall with the grace of snow, yet lies over everything living and dead.

I remember holding my little cousin's hands and running them to safety, each dressed in their costumes yelling and screaming as I got them out of there and away from the ruins that were their home. And now here I am standing on the outskirts of this new city that I had settled down in after the inquisition came to an end, elves lay dead in the streets and guards stand at the ready for the next waves of rebels to come charging in. The city is built on something they said, no one is sure what but **he** needed it, and the only reason I had made so far and avoided **him** and **his** people is due to my father, he ran to the rebellion when I settled down something about going out fighting and that it was ' _his turn to be rebellious again_ ' and ' _keeping you out of this little one._ '

Here standing watching another city burn with my finger entwined with one of my partners, I am thankful that my dad got to me before the rebels got into the town. I doubt I would have been allowed to leave had one of **his** agents found me there, I suspect that my father cannot keep me away from **him** for any longer. There is a loud crash, and a flash of green before screams fill the air again, **he** has made an appearance, and it is time for me to disappear before I get the need to go back and try and save people from his destruction.

The city is built on something they need, or so they said. No one is sure what it was, but **he** needed it. No. **He wanted it** , only what he was chasing has left with **me.** I won't tell dad, I won't tell the people who hold me close at night, and I won't let the reborn inquisition know either. What I have with me will stay with me till either **he** comes and takes it from me or this whole war ends. 

I remember the first time I went to the outskirts of a city after the betrayal, it was a nightmare and a half. Now when I see it for the second time, it's nothing but a nightmare, but this time when I leave, it is not with children in tow but my two lovers and the weight of what I took from beneath the city.

I read once a passage from the bible that said to _'Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation.'_ and so he has.


	4. A Departure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very short bit for today.

"O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." My father sat by the entrance of the tent watching the snowfall, I had barely made it out of the town when the armies had come over the hills, but I know dad did don't follow when we escaped under the chantry.

" _Dad_?" leaning up from my mat I look to where he sits, blinking slowly before jolting forward towards him, "You got out!" the moment my hand reaches his place it fades through him, whispering through my fingers like sand his form shifting as I draw my hand back. " _You_...You aren't here. You're **gone** ," my voice is a whisper against the winds outside, the soft crunching of snow underfoot and the clanking of armour fills the air as I thump back onto the mat mind racing with thoughts of my father and his smile as the people of haven celebrated freedom.

I think back on the final conversation and how far from the others he stood.

_'He's coming little one,'_

_'Who is coming? A friend of yours?'_

_'Of sorts little one, of sorts,'_

_'Dad are_ yo- _'_

" **Miss Louise**! The ambassador needs you!" the rush of cold air as the tent is opened snaps me from my thoughts and drags me back to the present. That's right havens gone, dad's gone, Orsino' injured, and Vehk's barely holding the healers together whatever else could go wrong more than likely will at this point, and I am helpless to it like a small child being thrown about for fun I am not quite sure where the ground is.

 


	5. Another day with her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big gay mood

Our marriage was forged in fire and was all the stronger for it. Only a decade earlier our unison would have been illegal, our love a criminal act. Any children we could have had been walking proof of our lawlessness. The day we held our certificate, ink still drying under the midday sun, our hands had shaken like leaves, tremulous in an unseen wind.

Even though she is no longer here, I can feel the weight of her hand in mine as we walked out after our ceremony. We were not so foolish as to expect acceptance. The law is easier to change than embittered hearts, jealously guarding what they have no right to deny others.

So in the street, I wrapped my hand around hers and walked with our heads held high. For this woman had given me the strength to live, she was everything I ever wanted. We were partners in laughter, frivolity and serious debate. It would have been easy to become reclusive and shun the world, but we never did.

Our home was of music, love, and the warmth of family and friends. Keyword being ' _ **was**_ ', and the war waited for no one not even newlyweds.

Just as the first bite of cold wind creeps under my night-shirt My wife's, wife such a new word for someone I have held so close for so long, hand moves around my middle, warm and soft. In seconds her body is moulded to my own, sharing her body heat as quickly as she shares her heart. I could never let another close to me like this, but there she is sleepily nuzzling her way into my back. I've never known why she always does that curling around me or slumping across my chest in her sleep, but right now I would have it no other way.

And right now there's no place I would rather be than right here.

_With her._


	6. The pendant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is canon to the story

The young woman held herself like her upper spine was rubber, shoulders falling forwards in a way that would be more befitting a grandmother. When she caught my eye her path changed, instead of continuing towards the gates she turned and marched towards me eyes clouded as if she was still half asleep and a hand clenched around something.

_**"He calls..."** _

Cold metal and rough leather are pressed into my hand before the woman blinks, and her demeanour changes, a huff and a sneer before I am pushed out of the way, and she storms off. Not the strangest interaction to date but one that sticks out the most.

The pendant in question looks to be a dragon holding a red stone; it is warm in my hand, yet not as if warmed by my hand.

_Who is humming?_


	7. Taste of steel

 

The knife sat precariously on my skin, soft enough to not pierce my neck, hard enough to enforce the intended message. The sharp metal should have been cold and raw against my bare skin, but my body could not feel anything except for the excruciating pain of his betrayal.

My throat and heart held in a silver grasp and all I could do was stare lifelessly at the blue eyes that held the blade and a terrifying coldness I had never seen before. I had always thought his eyes were a light blue, but looking at them now I could see no trace of the vibrancy they once held, no evidence of the father I once knew.

Trembling, I tipped my chin up into the sharpened edge, tempting him to end my anguish, half hoping he would. A small stream of blood trickled from the feeble cut I could not feel; he did not flinch or remove his eyes from mine, a sad smile stretched out across gaunt features.

My frozen heart shifted at the sight of his fierce gaze, my legs almost failing beneath me. His steadfast grip on the polished weapon moved, causing more crimson liquid to flow from the raw wound he had inflicted.

" _Why Little one?_ **Why!** "

"You know why dad, _you just don't want to say it out loud_." 


	8. Bloodless choice

The clangour of the swords had died away, the shouting of the slaughter was hushed; silence lay on the red-stained snow. The pale bleak sun that glittered so blindingly from the ice-fields and the snow-covered plains struck sheens of silver from rent corselet and broken blade, where the dead lay in heaps. The nerveless hand yet gripped the fractured hilt: helmeted heads, back-drawn in the death throes, whole and infected scatter in numbers uncountable.

The blood flowed thickly over my fingers, cold. He must have died some time ago near the beginning of the attack. I guess I should have just left him there, but how could I after what he had been to me? Every time his corpse heaved more of the dark scarlet fluid ran down my hands until they looked like those of some abattoir worker.

My first choice bathed in red, my first choice with the price of a friend.

" _Goodbye, Orsino._ "


	9. Familiar Betrayal

It flowed out of the limp body and splattered onto the floor. It seeped into every corner of the room and made the gore of the red ruins the once beautiful manor.

It drips from my fingers and smears across my face, warm and fresh again dry and old, some day long ago I may have looked down on his body and cried, but now all that is left is empty words.

Blackened hands tipped with claws close his eyes for the final time; they say the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.

And my covenant seeps corrupt red blood.


	10. Those slain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ehehehe

**Genocide.**

Eight letters to describe more murders and pain than the human mind can take in. After one or two deaths there is a catastrophic malfunction, and no more is understood, no more emotion forthcoming.

One dead child is a tragedy, a thousand of them is a news report. I'm here though; I'm here on the ground surrounded by the bodies of those I loved, unable to comprehend how I could do this. Closest to me is Karl, thirty-four years old and walked with a broad smile.

Next to him is forty-five years old Orsino, the one who wanted to save the mages and sail the oceans. Right in front of them is Boris, only sixty and he just wanted the best for his children. I could go on but who would read it, who would listen?

They were all special, all beautiful, and now they are meat for the buzzards.

Perhaps that is the problem with bringing math to issues of humanity, don't tell people numbers, show them names, who the victims were on the inside.

_But I know these names, and their blood stains my hands and the ground I walk._


	11. Time again

A searing shot of pain ran up the young woman's body, a scream escaping her pale lips as the devastating sounds bounced off the living room's walls. A man sat opposite the weeping woman, an iron fire poker by his side. His hands were firmly clasped under his chin, a gleeful grin stretched across his face. He was handsome, yes, but his charm had long gone. His hair was long and unruly, and dark circles outlined his bloodshot eyes. His skin was paler than it once was, as he hadn't been outside for quite some time, but the current weather probably wouldn't help recover the loss.

The man didn't seem at all bothered by the screams that came from his victim. If anything, he seemed amused by her pain. His stony eyes stared down at the twitching body before him as if he were inspecting a freshly plucked turkey, all ready to go into the oven. The flames that licked up the sides of the fireplace reflected off the beads of sweat that had settled on the woman's forehead.

Her agony was his entertainment, and I the witness to it as always with these things.

" ** _Erimond...It is time._** " 


End file.
